


The ABO fic no one asked for

by Vodka112



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Child Neglect, Death in Childbirth, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Mpreg, No Sex, Resurrection, Soulmates, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-11-19 02:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vodka112/pseuds/Vodka112
Summary: Where Jason dies while giving birth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HEAD THE WARNINGS please. Don't want anyone getting squicked. D:
> 
> All the ANGST. D: Written to take it out of my head. Unbeta-ed. This is a crying fest. ;A;

Bruce wont make it. Ten calls, six from Alfred, four from  _Jason,_  and Batman had been too busy dismantling Riddler's schemes to notice. He runs into the clinic and doesn't even bother to pull up his cowl.

Leslie greets him. She's still in her scrubs and she's covered in blood. So much blood. 

He runs into the room. Jason lays frail and tiny in the operating bed. He's--

"He lost too much blood. We can't-- couldn't stop the bleeding," Leslie says. 

He turns around. "There must be something--"

"He doesn't have long. Bruce-- I'm so sorry."

Ice. A chill that settles in your bones and in your heart. "No."

"I'm sorry."

"There's-- I'll take him in the jet and--"

"Bruce," Alfred's voice breaks through the web of thoughts in his mind. His old friend sits next to the bed, holding Jason's hand. "He has been asking for you. Won't you oblige?"

Every step he takes, the world falls away behind him. There's just Jason, his Jay, so close to deaths door and he--

He grasps Jay's other hand in his. Takes off his gloves to rub the cold away from those pale knuckles. He pulls the cowl away and the scent of sick and dying overwhelms him.

"Bruce?" 

Jay's voice is a whisper, and he brushes the sweat soaked hair off Jay's face. "I'm here. You-- You did well, Jay." 

He swallows through the lump growing in his throat. 

"How is-- how is she? I don't know if I saw her, I don't-- I don't remember--"

"She's doing fine," A lie. He hasn't seen her either. "She's-- everything will be fine, Jay."

"That's-- that's good, right? She'll... She'll be happy?"

"Yes." He doesn't know. He doesn't  _know_  if she ever will but he lies.

"Promise... Don't let..."

"I promise."

And the world turns gray. The light of his life, gone, just like that. 

All his fault.

* * *

"Bruce! You cannot go on like this!"

Alfred's taken to scolding him when he comes back from patrols. It's a never-ending night of patrols and never-ending day of playing ditzy billionaire. He only stops by the manor to change his clothes. He doesn't sleep in his bed anymore and he naps in the penthouse.

They had the burial in a small grove a ways from the Wayne Mausoleum. Jason doesn't belong there, trapped in unyielding stone. He belongs close to the stars.

He belongs next to Batman as he flies through Gotham. He belongs in Bruce's bed, covering Bruce with his mate-scent. He doesn't deserve this eternal rest, six feet under, someplace Bruce can't follow.

Bruce jerks as a piercing cry wakes him from his stupor. He rubs his face and rakes his hand through his hair. 

"Alfred?" he calls out. The crying continues in its own sad, whimpering way and Alfred still isn't anywhere close by. Bruce sighs and he stands up.

The sound, like a wheezing and dying cat, come loudest from the next room. The nursery door is cracked open. Bruce opens it fully and he has to take in a deep breath.

They decorated this room, him and Jay. After he'd yelled Bruce into submission, Jay took great care in bringing Bruce's ancestral crib in and just about everything Alfred said his parents and great-grandparents used for their long-line of Wayne heirs. All dark, heavy wood, some carved with the initials of a forgotten ancestor, and Jay made Bruce carry them down from the attic or up from the storage. 

The walls were stripped of their bland cream paper and installed with happy green, gilded with fake gold, red flowers bursting out of every painted branch. The curtains. The book shelf filled to bursting. That rocking chair.

Jason insisted on it, complaining about the musty and rigid ancestral rocking chair. He'd spent most of his pregnancy on it, or at least the days where he wasn't on bed rest. He should be there right now, rocking back and forth, teasing Bruce about holding the baby wrong and  _You should try to spend more time with Carrie_.

The baby stops crying in Bruce's arms, but he has to wipe away the tears falling on her wrinkled face.

* * *

Tim was a blessing disguised in a tiny omega boy. But when Bruce met him, he thought he was the devil.

Bruce had kept the particulars of Jason's death from the media. If people knew half the truth, it would mean the end for Wayne Foundation. If people knew the whole truth, it'll be the end of Bruce. 

And Tim,  _brilliant and conniving little shit_ , decided Batman needed Nightwing to complicate matters. It felt good when Nightwing beat him purple. It felt the worst when Alfred explained the situation to Dick and the look in his eyes when he saw Bruce-- the  _pity_...

Bruce didn't mean for any of this to happen. He'd picked up the plucky orphan from Crime Alley. He didn't care about his secondary gender. He meant to be the father he couldn't be with Dick, who's own father was an ideal Bruce can only shadow. He thought he found a Robin.

He didn't think he'd picked up his mate.

Bruce had forged that tenuous line between them with the trust and loyalty through the years, and thought nothing of Jason's affectionate habits. He chalked it up to the boy being an omega and probably imprinting on him as a parental unit. He'd never thought Jay would imprint on him as an omega mate.

He tried everything short of sending the boy away but he'd taken Jason already hardened from the streets. He fought Bruce just as hard. Despite Bruce's best intentions, he couldn't deny the pain he inflicted on both of them. Jason had scolded him about it to length, still in his suit, when his heat struck. His subsequent heats got worse and Bruce often came home from voluntary exile to a pallid Jason, unable to get up from his bed. It was the worst of their days, almost as bad as the days leading to Jay's death. 

Then they'd been doused by Ivy's pollen. Jason hadn't let him go till they were both sated, sweaty, with Jay's scent so infused in Bruce's sheets.

Bruce thought that would be their first and last. He lost count of how many times he'd tell himself that, till Jason laughed at him for being fool, and he'd accepted.

Jason bit his mark on Bruce low on his neck, almost on his shoulder, and it aches. and aches. and aches.

He didn't take the news well when Jason told him. He'd been careful, as careful as he could be, and he'd been so angry at himself.

Jason had fought him every step of the way and he had sealed his bond with the bite. He fought him now, too, talking about how his parents gave him life, despite the circumstances of their life. Threatened to walk away, got as far as packing up one of the cars in the garage with his clothes. 

He was so sure he could make it. He was so sure...

Bruce sometimes wonders if he should have put his foot down. Jay had been too young, just coming into his maturity.  _Sixteen years old._  Bruce shouldn't have believed him.

Bruce should've learned by now how ugly life can be when one lives on  _hope_.

Tim had taken Carrie out on the grove he laid Jason down. He found them offering flowers on the grave marked by a simple granite plaque. The grass had tentatively started growing on the disturbed soil. 

"She should know about him. It seems only fair," Tim said. Carrie giggled in his arms. She gets bigger every time Bruce looks at her. Her hair fell off a week after she was born and Bruce can see it grown thicker now, peeking out from her small cap, red curls turning bright gold in the setting sun.

Tim left him telling stories to Carrie on the grove.

* * *

"Daddy, tell me more," Carrie says, her eyes fighting a losing battle with sleep. The stars are bright above them and the wind smelling slightly of thunder. Carrie's third birthday had come and gone under a storm that raged through Gotham. When the storm let up, she insisted on visiting her mommy's grave, and Bruce had never learned to tell her no.

The air is as clear as the skies, as if the storm swept away all that isn't natural in the world and all that's left is pure and good. It's the perfect night for a story.

There's a strange rumbling sound around them, followed by the rustling of leaves. Bruce stands up, hauling his child in his arms, and he runs as fast as he can. The ground shakes from under him and Carrie is crying in the crook of his neck. He slips, and the ground swallows them whole.

* * *

Bruce woke up from a week long coma and had to be out of commission for half a year. He broke his back against a tree when the landslide happened. He had to get more pins and screws that he ever had done through his entire career as Batman.

Dick had grudgingly agreed to wear the costume while Bruce was healing. Bruce knows it wasn't for him but for Tim. Having only Robin patrolling Gotham is a disaster in the making. 

Carrie has been sleeping in his hospital bed for the last couple of weeks. She cried that first day Bruce woke up, and it broke his heart all over again. He's been following his prescribed physical therapy and the doctors are less tentative about releasing him than they were last week. 

He has to call Alfred, make him take Carrie back to the manor, or the penthouse. She shouldn't see Bruce suffering.

* * *

The grove is gone, swept away under rubble, soil and wood. The first thing Bruce does when he can walk is to check the area. Alfred had hired trustworthy men to find Jason. His coffin should have made it through the accident, but the workers hadn't seen hide nor tail of it. The plaque is missing as well, as if the hill ate him full, every bit of him just to make Bruce--

He operates the machinery and works on it on days when Carrie sleeps over at the penthouse. This goes on for weeks.

* * *

Bruce pours in the cement, and Carrie gets on her hands and knees to stick her palms on it. The new grove took a long time to make and doesn't hold as much meaning as the old one. But his daughter needs the closure, as Dick and Alfred told him, so he gets on his knees and signs the plaque with his name. As an afterthought, he signs Carrie's as well.

The grove can be for Jason, even if his body isn't there anymore.

* * *

"Let go of me, whelp!" Damian's brassy voice echoes through the cave, followed by Carrie's piercing cry. Bruce tried his best to never let the two meet but here they are.

Carrie's still clinging to Damian's arm, her hands like claws, and Tim is holding her back by her waist. Bruce has never seen her like this. Damian tries to escape by prying her hands off but Tim loses his balance. He lets go, and Carrie crawls all over Damian. She sticks her nose to the boy's nape and quiets down.

Bruce gets low and pulls her up by her waist. She screams. Bruce lets her go.

Damian tries to get his hand on her face, and Bruce has half the mind to scold him for being too harsh. His arm is bleeding where Carrie's nails tore through his suit. 

"Carrie, let Damian go," Bruce commands.

"No!" Carrie replies.

Bruce stays still for a couple of seconds before he yanks his kid up by her armpits. The silence had lulled her into a sense of temporary peace and she let go of Damian. But her screeches are still piercing and loud.

He'd taken her to his office to scold. If he had a choice between Doomsday and parenting his five-year-old daughter, he'd pick Doomsday. It doesn't help that he'd never stopped Carrie from doing what she wanted, from drawing all over her nursery walls to hanging out with Tim in the cave. She's his princess and she knows it. 

It doesn't stop him from grounding her for the first time in her young life. She looks shellshocked when he left her to Alfred's cookies in the kitchen. When he goes down to check on Damian, the kid is gone.

* * *

Aside from the first scare, things between Carrie and Damian are well. Carrie loves to follow Damian around and doing whatever he's doing. Bruce thinks she might be reacting to Damian's familial scent. It isn't different from how she treats Tim these days, except with less stalking. Tim is a recent addition to their family, his scent settling down into something fraternal for Carrie. Tim smells like Carrie does to Bruce, sweet and powder-like. Damian smells like Talia, like the smell of ginger tea. 

Jason had said that Bruce smells like old wood. He didn't know what but he'd mumbled in his half-sleep that Bruce reminds him of libraries and moldy books. Bruce had tickled the boy for comparing him to mold and his laughter rang like bells against the walls of their bedroom.

Bruce goes to the living room when the silence lasts longer than it should. Damian's black hair peeks out the top of the couch and Bruce comes around to check.

Damian had fallen asleep on the couch, his mouth open, and Carrie made herself at home in his lap, gripping his shirt with one tiny fist. Damian's arm is around her back, supporting her neck.

Bruce covers them with fleece blankets before he leaves.

* * *

Jason smells like molasses and dark chocolate. Bruce confesses that little fact after Jason bit his mark. It's a scar that Bruce takes the pain to cover with skin patches. It still aches during storms, and Bruce swears he can smell Jason around him. 

It's still there. Bruce is still Jason's.

* * *

That's why when Hush pretends to be Jason, Bruce takes a moment to get himself together before beating Clayface to almost death. How dare he use Jason's bond with Bruce and pervert it? Jay knew Bruce loved him, right at the very end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess we can call this a uterus fic? Not a good idea pushing myself to write during bad menstrual episodes.
> 
> "Promise me you'll be happy. Don't let me take that from you. Make her happy. Make yourselves happy, like a family does, alright? Bruce, promise me."


	2. Chapter 2

When he wakes up, he's drowning. He's trapped in a coffin like some sick joke. He drowns and he wakes up only to relive the nightmare. 

He doesn't know how long this goes on. He thought this must be his hell. Then the coffin gives away. 

He bursts out of the surface, only to drown one more time.

He wakes up on the edge of the water, coughing water and other fluids out of his body. Oxygen burns its way through his lungs, but he's alive.

_He's alive._

He spends long minutes lying on that shore with the water lapping at his midriff, threatening to take him back in its depths. He's trying to remember.

He can't.

The water glows green. It's weird. He walks around, trying to find an exit.

There isn't one.

Realistically, he knows he has seven days before he dies of hunger, but he is unafraid. He feels _invincible_.

The days come and go. He drinks from the spring. He gets so bored he yells. When that exhausts him, he swims to the bottom of the spring and takes up a sizable chunk of metal keeping the coffin together. He uses that to test the walls of the cave.

One part of the cave is muddy and soft. He spends countless days digging through that. He sleeps when he cant dig through the pain of his bloody hands.

He dreams. Beautiful dreams. He dreams of a man who gives him wings to fly. He dreams of soaring through the skies, the wind against his body and nothing below his feet. 

There are bad dreams, too. Nightmares. He dreams of drowning in that coffin. He dreams of blood, all around him. He dreams...

He wakes up, drinks from the spring, and goes on digging.

It must be an unusual kind of hell. He digs and digs till his hands are bloody stumps. He drinks from the spring and when he wakes up, his hands are whole again, unmarked and unscarred. 

He tries to go longer without drinking from the spring.

It doesn't go quite well. He tried it on the maggots, his only companions in this prison. They dried up, one by one, without water or food. He sprinkled them with water from the spring, and they come back to life. 

He vomits bile for an hour after that, but he doesn't linger.

If he wants to survive long enough to get out of here, he needs to drink from the spring.

He digs and he digs and he drinks from the spring.

* * *

He had someone before. Someone who brushed his hair and caressed his face. Someone who loved him. 

Small, calloused hands replaced by huge ones. Another hand patting his head. Big arms around him. The musk of wood and... mint? 

He must have been loved in life. He should have been. Whoever they are, they buried him a coffin he drowned in multiple times before he managed to break out. They buried him in good clothes, thick material, kept him warm if he went about dressing right.

They must be waiting for him. They should be waiting for him.

* * *

There it is. It's the tiniest hole to the other side, but Jason pries it open with his fingers. There's moving air outside. 

He digs with more vigor.

When he squeezes his whole body through the hole, he crawls up and up. He breaks through soft soil and claws his way out.

He's out. There's moonlight and stars above him, trees and leaves around him. He lays down and breathes life in.

* * *

He remembers more now that he's out. He's been here before. The road extends down the hill towards a glittering city. There's smog rising up on 15th and Rising.

He makes his way there. To do what, he doesn't know. Maybe, he'll know when he gets there.

* * *

He remembers more, now that he sleeps with the moon. He has been here before. His parents. His name. His past.

He tears into the new Wayne poster, showing off his new adopted _son_. His neck is bare.

* * *

Nothing's changed for Bruce. He's flying around Gotham with a new Robin less than a year after you died. Did he even wait for the weeds to grow on your grave? And this new Robin is an omega. Jason knows, can see it in the new kid's soft mouth and curved jaw. It's not just anger that's bubbling inside him.

Jason bombs the spring he came back from. It's easy calling it in as another landslide, as easy as the one that trapped him down there. 

It will take him some months, perhaps a year, to build up an empire that can topple the likes of Gotham, and show Bruce what he lost. Show him exactly how mad a forgotten spectre can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a whole day to write this??? I just wanted it outta my head. OTL


	3. Chapter 3

How did he forget? How could he forget?

He came back to destroy his Replacement. It was the perfect revenge plan: get Bruce to pick between the two of them. 

But there was a little girl blocking his way, with his red hair and his blue eyes and--

He retreats. He retreats far into the forest, past that into the city, back into his dump of a safe house.

He...

He drinks a glass of water and throws it against the wall. It shatters into a million pieces.

He forgot all about her. He-- How could he forget?

The memories come back to him now. The fights. All those times Bruce told him-- begged him to stop, to think about himself, and all those times he'd shot Bruce down.

How could he forget he had a daughter?

The memories are nothing but flashes and headaches but this one comes back with a punch: lying in the operating table, waiting for Bruce to come back, feeling scared for himself, for the baby, for Bruce, stupidly waiting for his alpha, and that last breath before he died.

Jason screams and he rages.

It's morning when the dust settles. Everything around him is in tatters. Broken. Defeated.

Bruce kept her a secret. In his research, Jason never caught a whiff of her. Bruce had kept her.

But he kept her hidden.

Jason shakes his head against the memories willing to rush back. He doesn't need them. What he needs is a modified approach. A plan B with a detour.

He needs to get her out of there.

* * *

 _Carrie_.

Jason jerks awake. Alfred and Leslie asked him what to name her and he said _Carrie_.

He gets up from bed. The moon is round outside. Jason wears his armor. It's showtime. No more surprises.

* * *

The Demon Brat is pretty sturdy, but not impossible to kill. Jason targets him first, to take him out with either a sleeping agent or the strongest poison Jason owns. It's the poison that does him in. For a sweet twist, he ties the kid up and places the antidote in his lap. If it slips, it'll break and the antidote will spill down on the floor. Practically mercy for what Talia did. Building this kid up from dna scrap and sidestepping Jason's bond with Bruce. 

Carrie's sleeping in her bed, like a kid with a proper schedule. Her room doesn't have windows. Jason grits his teeth as he drugs her with a sleeping agent. The dosage is small, only to make sure she doesn't wake up during transfer. It's all so fucking easy, slipping through the halls with his daughter on his shoulders.

He bundles her in front of him as the bike roars through Gotham. He waits patiently till he's back at the safe house to check her over. She should be waking up by now.

All the hair on her head is ridiculously red. _God_ , Jason sees why the kids ragged on him so much about his hair. Her eyelids flicker open and, damn, her eyelashes are red too, and the freckles on her little nose, all of it from Jason. She doesn't act surprised when she first looks at him. Then her blue eyes fill with fear and she curls up on the corner of the bed.

"Sorry about that," Jason says with barely a quiver in his voice. "Didn't know when you'd wake up."

She's gone quiet, very different from how she acts with Damian or the fucking Replacement. Her blue eyes track every movement Jason makes.

"You must be wondering why you're here. There's a very long answer to that question," he says. She's staring is a little bit above where Jason's eyes are. "Is someone behind me?" he asks, turning around. 

Then, whiplash quick, he grabs her wrist when she gets out of the bed. "Ah," he says in warning,"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

She bites her bottom lip. 

Jason frowns behind the helmet.

He points at the camera he situated in front of the bed. "That thing's coming online in a few minutes. I would like you to read some lines for me and then I'll let you go. That sound good to you?"

Her lips get impossibly thin and she says, "Daddy says we don't negotiate with kidnappers."

Jason snorts. "Of course _Daddy_ would say that," he mumbles under his breath. "Listen, I don't want you here either, but the longer it takes for you to do what I want you to do, the longer you have to be here, the shorter my patience gets. I'm not a patient man."

She crosses her arms and points her nose in the air. Jason has to admire her balls but it does make things a little bit more complicated for him.

* * *

The video gets viral the moment it hits the net. Forums and chat sites buzz about Bruce Wayne's illegitimate child. Now, a title like that wouldn't normally be viral, without a little help. Namely, the bots accounts that Jason's hacked for a couple of months now post the video every hour since midnight. They would all stop at sunrise and the news would have spread far outside Gotham by then.

The other one is the subject matter of the video itself. Cute, little red haired girl tied up on top of a bed with tape on her mouth. _Ain't that an image?_ Then Jason's own mug behind the red helmet reads off the script he had written for her. Carrie's eyes had burned. She looks like Bruce then, all scowl-and-disappointment.

He finishes it off with ripping out the tape on Carrie's mouth.

"Batman will get you!" she screeches.

"That's what I want!" Jason sarcastically answers and she's taken aback by it long enough for Jason to stop the recording. When it's transmitting, he sits on the bed next to her.

"Batman will come for me," she says and the blind trust in her eyes hurts. Jason blames Bruce for this. She isn't even trying to escape anymore. If she gets kidnapped for real, she's toast.

"Sure he will but, just a secret between you and me, he always comes late," Jason replies and he finishes untying the ropes around her. He stands up when he's done, heading for the pitcher of water on the side table.

"You must be thirsty," Jason asks and, heartwrenchingly disappointing, Carrie sits up from the bed. She's just sitting up and rubbing her wrists. _Toast_.

Jason offers her a glass. Its sweating in the humid Gotham air. She takes it with both of her small hands. She even says _thank you_ before taking a sip.

"Are you hungry?" Jason asks next. Then she drops the glass. "Ah."

Jason leans down to take it and she kicks his helmet with all her might. It's substantial, Jason thinks. He lays on the ground, listening to the pitter patter of her feet on the floor. It slows to a stop with a final thud. Jason gets up and follows.

She got pretty far, nearly to the door on the first floor. She'd have fared better if she jumped out the fire escape, but then Jason would have to follow immediately and make sure she doesn't fall to her death. She's slumped over and Jason turns her over gently, brushing her hair away from her face. Then he carries her back upstairs, her head cradled in the crook of his neck.

He tries not to think of would-be's and should-be's.

* * *

"Please! I beg you. My boss would _kill_ me if this doesn't get to Mr. Wayne at 8am sharp," the young man wearing a delivery boy cap whines to the receptionist at Wayne Enterprises Lobby. He points to a huge box beside him. The receptionist shakes their head.

"I can't promise that, man. Look, you can't just give anything to Mr. Wayne, it has to go through scans and inspections. Besides, the man himself doesn't clock in earlier than 1pm," they say.

"Oh, maaan. What do I do? I can't just keep it. It's fucking huge!" the young man whines again.

"Fine, fine. How 'bout this? I put the delivery to be received by Mr. Drake and put a note for him to pass it on to Mr. Wayne. How 'bout that?" the receptionist reasons.

"Hmmm. I dunno man. It's my neck on the line here. Does Mr. Drake get in early?"

"Yeah. 8am on the dot."

"Jeez. Thanks man. Yeah. That can work. I guess you can sign my papers then and I can go."

"Sure. What's in here anyway?"

"A huge cake. I saw them make it. It's pretty heavy and had all these decorations. I'd be careful with it if I were you."

The cake must be three feet long, two feet wide and two feet thick. The receptionist hails one of the errand boys to help move the package to Mr. Drake's office. 

* * *

The night ends exactly as Jason expects it. Tim will make sure Bruce makes it out of this explosion alive and Jason... will finally bite the fucking dust. _Finally_. No more mystique resurrection springs. No more flashes of memory. No more phantom pains.

No more ghosts.

The end at last.


	4. Chapter 4

Batman had been staring at Jason sleeping in the hospital bed for the past hour. He looks like he's either willing Jason to wake up and start moving around or reliving the worst memories of his life. 

Tim tries to understand but he can't. There's no way this man is the second Robin. For one, he tried to kill Tim, twice. For another, he kidnapped Carrie. Damian's probably still vomiting buckets back at the manor.

But Bruce is just standing there. He's so sure that this evilclone!Jason didn't hurt her. Tim has his arm in a sling because Mr. Evilclone had the viciousness of a jilted omega. 

He has to get out of here. If Bruce wants to stay for a fake, he can do that. Tim's gonna go look for Carrie.

* * *

But before that, he needs to drop by Wayne Ent. A package has arrived for him and the penthouse computer is more powerful than the caveputer anyway.

* * *

_What the actual heck? Who's a jerk that puts a kid in a box shaped like a coffin?_

Tim reaches for Carrie's neck, feeling her slow pulse there. He puts his hand under her nose and feels the air move according to her slow breathing. Then he heaves a sigh of relief. 

He pats her cheeks gently. "Carrie, sweetie, wake up. C'mon."

Carrie opens her sweet blue eyes. She looks around her in confusion. When she sees Tim, she jumps, her arms wrapping tightly around Tim's neck. Tim can hear her sniffing his neck.

"Tim! I had a bad, bad dream."

Tim rubs his free hand on her back, trying to calm her sobs. "Shh," he soothes, "It's alright now. You're alright."

* * *

Despite everything he's done, Bruce insists on Evil-Incarnate staying at the manor. Tim protests. Damian, shockingly, protests with him. They leave the manor and take Carrie with them to the penthouse. If they have to subside on pizza rolls till Bruce regains his senses, then so be it.

It turns out, they don't have to since Tim has the hook-up with the best cook this side of Kansas. Kon ferries food for them for almost a week before Alfred hears about it. The old butler gets so stroppy Tim takes to hiding his junk food in the vents again. Kon still flies by, mainly to give him the team's status report personally. 

It's nice having Kon there. Makes Tim feel as if having a broken arm isn't all that bad. 

Kon holds his hand up for Tim to stop talking. There's that glazed look he gets when he's using his superhearing. He turns his head subtlety towards Carrie's room. 

Tim gets up so fast he feels like _he_ has superspeed.

Carrie's room is dark. She's sullenly fallen asleep after Tim and Damian had to coax her into bed with a third bedtime story. It's obviously a side-effect of her kidnapping but Damian insists she's missing Bruce. Tim contradicted him for nothing better to do. They'll have better luck moving a mountain than making Bruce change his mind.

Evil-Incarnate is sitting on the bed and crouched over Carrie. He brushes her hair away from her face. Creepy.

He's not wearing much of anything, just a tank top and a pair of boxers, both barely containing his awesome body. Tim had seen pictures of him before, away from Bruce's eyes. Seeing him like this with Carrie, even when illuminated by the nightlight, makes Tim see the familial resemblance between them.

Tim steps inside and Jason looks at him. Then he gestures with a finger between his lips. "Shhh," he whispers, "you'll wake her up." 

Then he turns back to caressing Carrie's head.

"You shouldn't be here," Tim says. Jason clicks his tongue when Carrie twitches in her sleep. He stands up slowly, and Tim can now see the multitude of gauze plastered all over his body. Some of them are darkening and growing.

Jason walks silently and Tim waits for him to go out to the hallway before following suit, locking the door behind him. 

"I'm sorry about your arm. I was pissed off and you were right there," Jason says. Kon stupidly keeps himself between the two of them, covering for Tim's broken arm.

"Apology not accepted. Just because Bruce believes you, does not mean I do," Tim growls.

Jason actually laughs at him, something chilling and close to how he laughed before he stomped on Tim's elbow.

"I'm not contesting that, but I have a question for you," Jason pushes through. Tim can kinda see how he could get his way with Bruce most of the time. "If you died and everyone you ever loved learned to move on without you, and _then_ you come back to life, where do you go?"

Tim clenches his good fist.

"I mean," Jason continues,"my grave's not even there anymore and the old man wouldn't let me go. But. Should I even be here? He's got you. Carrie's got you. What am I even here for?"

Tim draws in a breath to tell him, _yeah, we don't need you here. Thing's will be better if you were gone,_  but Kon steps up and Tim gets distracted trying to drag his stupid back.

"You're here for you," Kon says. "It doesn't matter how you got back. What matters is you're here. You find your place again. If your people loved you and still do, then your place is with them."

Tim gulps. Jason stares at Kon for a long time.

"Who're you?" he asks.

"I'm Superboy. I don't think we've met," Kon answers and he holds his hand up. Jason looks at his hand like he wanted to kill it. Then he raises his own and they shake hands.

"Jason Todd. Second Robin, succeeded by your boy there," he says, nodding at Tim. "You talk like you've got experience."

"Yeah. It's not easy and I'm still settling in, but if there's anyone I know I can count on, it'll be my people."

Jason seems to think this over. "I'll keep in touch," he says before slinking off towards the exit.

Tim slumps against Kon's back when he's gone. He releases the breath he held through the whole encounter.

"Are you okay, Tim? Is your arm bothering you?" Kon asks, like he hadn't just disabled a ready-to-blow situation with a few diplomatic words.

"I'm okay. Are _you_ okay? You know you didn't have to say that. I could make him leave," Tim asks back. Kon looks at him like he's talking in French.

"I'm fine, and you can't turn him away. You're all he's got," Kon says.

Tim bites his lip. Kon's own resurrection wasn't really much of a resurrection as traveling back in time after being restored in the future. When he got back, things were different. Cassie wasn't his girlfriend anymore, for one, and Tim had broken his promise not to clone Kon, for another. The Young Justice graduates had disbanded for good, with Tim hecking off in Europe and Cassie staying to train the new recruits. Bart died soon after Kon. It was such a dark time in Tim's life.

Even with Kon and Bart back to life, things still didn't feel right. Their stint with Teen Titans is done. Tim's actually older than Kon now and much more older than Bart. Cassie's the same, and they're learning each other all over again.

Kon reaches for Tim's free hand and entwines their fingers. Tim sighs.

"I'll see what I can do," he says and the smile blossoming on Kon's face makes it worth saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stopping for now because I'm' close to passing out. gnyt evrbody.


	5. Chapter 5

"Jason, I brought you some food," Bruce said. He entered the room with a silver tray in his hands laden with fruit and tonight's dinner. Jason was already sitting up the bed, facing the windows. It was night outside, the stars half-way hidden by the patch of wood beyond. He has done nothing but stare blankly into the expanse of darkness.

Bruce settles himself in the chair by to Jason's bedside. "The stars are bright tonight," he says lamely, looking out the window. "C'mon, you should eat."

It took Bruce tilting Jason's jaw himself for the boy to look at him. He'd offered a spoonful of soup to a closed mouth. "Jason, please open up. It's simple chicken soup today. Alfred made it for you."

Jason spoke. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, his voice gravelly with disuse.

Bruce twitched in surprise, spilling warm soup on Jason's shirt. It happened sometimes, when Jason moved and spilled whatever it was he was being fed. But most of the time, Jason just stared unblinking at the wall, as if his soul had died and his body was just waiting to catch up. It had been this way for days.

"Damn," Bruce muttered as he quickly wiped the mess away. The skin underneath it was red. 

Jason caught his wrist and Bruce realized he wasn't hallucinating at all. Usually Jason opened his mouth and swallows what food Bruce or Alfred offered him, his eyes eerily unblinking. He'd never reached for them before.

"Tell me," Jason said. His eyes were trained on Bruce's neck, like he couldn't bare to look at Bruce's face.

Bruce swallowed. He didn't know how long this momentary lucidity would last. 

"What do you remember?" he asked instead. Jason frowned, his first real emotion since he came back from his second death.

That night he took Carrie, he forced Batman and Robin into a death trap, with Robin thoroughly incapacitated at the end of it. He'd then tossed a gun at Bruce, pointed his gun to Tim's temple and made Batman choose. Shoot Jason and save Tim, or shoot Tim and welcome Jason back into the fold. Bruce had done neither.

He'd tossed the gun and lulled Jason into thinking he was leaving. He'd taunted the boy, making sure Jason was angry enough to point his gun at Bruce instead. It worked. The boy pulled the trigger a half second too late as Bruce threw a batarang at his shoulder. 

Jason was gurgling blood by the time Bruce realized what he had done. His aim was off by an inch--an inch too high and nicked an artery. Bruce had rushed to him, desperately trying to staunch the blood. Jason seized under neath him and his gloves had stained red when Tim frantically informed him of the bomb. Jason had rigged the whole abandoned apartment complex to explode regardless of Bruce's choices. 

He'd thrown Tim out of the window and into the fire escape of the next building. Then he doubled back for Jason. They were in the hallway when the bomb exploded.

Tim woke him up, shook him awake amidst the smoking debris. Batman stood up despite the ringing in his ears. He'd started to heave up slabs of concrete when Tim stopped him. He pointed towards a figure stuck under a slab a few paces away from them. Batman immediately pushed it off and watched in amazed horror as Jason's body knit itself together, piece by piece, bones to muscles to skin. Jason had laughed the entire time, a broken and deranged sound that chilled Bruce to the bone.

His eyes also glowed green, and it stopped, Jason's laughter tapered off to deep, heavy breathing.

Batman had hauled him from there and straight to Leslie's. When Jason woke up, his eyes were blue again and, he'd been so deep in stupor, even Leslie couldn't being him out of it. He'd taken him home, against Tim and Damian's wishes.

Now after more than a week of caring for him, Jason was showing signs of awareness. Bruce tried to tamp down on the bright feeling in his chest.

Jason gripped his wrist tighter. Bruce winced.

"Why didn't you let me die?" Jason asked. He said the words as if it was wrung out of him by some unseen force. His eyes were still unblinking as he stared at Bruce's neck. Bruce watched in horror as Jason started crying, tear drops falling out of his eyes, staining his face and his clothes. "I was dying. Why did you bring me back?"

Bruce held his breath as Jason let go of his wrist to grab his shirt collar. This boy with Jason's red hair and freckles, who smelled like molasses and dark chocolate. He'd found the strength to look at Bruce in the eyes.

"I wanted to die," he whispered and broke Bruce's heart. 

Then he stumbled with his side to the bed like a puppet with its strings cut. He breathed deeply, his eyes blinking away the tears.

Bruce took him in his arms, cradled his head against the crook of his neck and cried. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Graphic Attempted Suicide.
> 
> Also, slightly Dub-Con feels. (The scene felt like an averted Non-Con, despite the absense of sex.) Just pointing that out.

"Jason? Where are you?" Bruce calls out as he enters the master's bedroom. He hears the sound of running water from the bath. Bruce takes off his suit jacket and hangs it on the back of a chair.

He had just come back from the penthouse. Dick needed to be debriefed before he takes up the cowl. Temporarily or not, its been a long while since Batman flew out the streets. Some of his regulars had shown anxious energy and Bruce was loathe to admit they're up to no good.

Alfred's there as well, doing housekeeping chores for the kids. Tim and Damian weren't talking to him. Hurtfully enough, neither was Carrie. She was hurt the most and Bruce hoped she'll at least understand once the time comes.

Dick wanted to see Jason, but Bruce denied him.

Bruce loosens his tie and drapes it over the jacket. He tosses the cufflinks on the chair as well and rolls up his sleeves. "Jason, are you swimming in there? I know its a bit bigger than--"

Jason was bathing in blood. Bruce hurries by his side. His face was deathly pale, his cheeks cold despite the warm water. Bruce felt for his pulse and met mutilated skin and muscle. Blood.

Bruce carries him out of the water and lays him just outside the tub. Pinkish water sloshes around them, staining Bruce's shirt. Jason didn't even bother to get out of his clothes. Bruce's right foot skids as he runs to the first-aid kit.

His hands kept shaking as he bandaged Jason's wrists. Gauge first and an elastic band. Do the other. He preps the needle and the disinfectant solution but when he opens up one wrist, he finds the artery already closed. The wound knits itself together before his very eyes. He unwraps the other one and together, both wounds close up. He douses a pad with disinfectant and wipes at Jason's wrists. The blood clears, showing unblemished skin. 

* * *

Jason wakes up cold in a warm bed and in dry clothes. He blinks at the ceiling. Then he lifts his hand.

Whole and unmarked. He curses.

Someone growls. Jason's breath hitches and he sits up. It's Bruce. His eyes are dark and he's standing near the foot of the bed instead of in his usual place.

"Why?" Bruce asks, his voice raspy with what might be tears.

Jason bares his teeth at the question and growls back.

"Why," Bruce starts again, his voice nearly shouting, "did you do it?!"

"Because you wont do it for me!" Jason screams at Bruce. He yanks the bed covers and gets off the bed. Bruce is there with his hand wrapped around Jason's arm like a clamp. "Why cant you just accept that?! I died!"

Bruce snarls, showing his teeth. Jason doesn't give a shit. "I died, you hear me?! I should've stayed dead!"

"No!" Bruce answers, his voice as fierce as rolling thunder. "You came back to life! You're given a second chance!"

"At what, Bruce?! Half a life?! Carrie doesn't even know who I am!" Jason shrieks.

"She will!" Bruce counters. He smells like burning wood and peppercorn. "But you have to give her the chance!"

Jason leans in and hisses, "Maybe you forgot I kidnapped her and sent her back in a box to your whore--!"

Jason stops and almost regrets saying that. Bruce's face gets impossibly red. He grips both of Jason's arms now and shakes him so hard, Jason's wondering how he can stay standing.

"You know he's not like that! You know he's my son!" Bruce bellows.

Jason pushes and pounds his fists against Bruce's chest. He can't find the breath to shove Bruce away.

"L-like I was a son to you?" he taunts weakly.

"Never!" Bruce snarls. He pushes Jason to the bed. Jason's still gasping for air when Bruce pounces. It's not the first time he's made Bruce mad but it's one of the times he felt genuinely frightened. His heart pounds against his chest and he wheezes in the effort to take in air.

They tussle. Bruce has both his wrists in a pin, slowly inching up above his head. He opens his legs, trying to settle both feet on Bruce's stomach, but his feet kept slipping on Bruce's silk shirt.

"You were never my son," Bruce growls and he doesn't even ask, just opens his jaws wide and sets his teeth on Jason's neck.

Jason stops breathing. Time seems to slow to a stand still. Bruce is going to bite him, like he'd always wanted. But he doesn't want this, not like this.

He can feel Bruce's teeth clamping down on his skin and he lets out a sob. Bruce hesitates. Then he lets go of Jason's neck. He gets off of Jason, who takes his new found freedom to curl up and cry. Hot tears roll down his cheek and nose.

"You," Bruce starts, and his voice wobbles as if he's crying too, "You were mine. My one. My mate." Jason's heart clenches to hear this truth. Bruce continues, "You were mine and I let you die. I shouldn't have-- I should have been more-- I should have acted like a proper alpha. You were too young. But I-- Carrie--"

And he can't go on. Jason wipes tears from his eyes to see Bruce's shoulders trembling. His alpha sits on the edge of the bed with his back to Jason. He crawls to Bruce. He has to yank the alpha's hands from his face. Jason despairs a little at how spindly his hands had grown, almost as long as Bruce's.

His alpha is sobbing. He doesn't dare open his eyes. Jason wipes the tears on his face with his thumbs, his sight blurring with his own tears.

"You were gone," Bruce says in a broken voice. Jason gulps a mouthful of tears before wrapping his arms around his Alpha. He nosed through his shirt, trying to find a scent gland that didn't smell of bitter regret. "You left me and Carrie. I didn't know what to do. You were gone. I'd have given everything I have to get you back."

Bruce buries his nose on the crook of Jason's neck. He wraps his arms around him, as tight as they can manage, as if he never wanted to let go.

"I didn't wanna die," Jason confesses. He wipes his tears and snot with his palm before resuming his white-knuckled grip on Bruce's shirt. "I didn't wanna go. I wanted to see her, hold her, watch her grow-- with you. I wanted.. I still do, but-- God, how do I fix this? I died. I tried to kill you. I k-killed a lot of people! I don't deserve to--"

"No," Bruce answered, his voice caught between a whine and a growl. "No. If I have to fight the world to keep you-- If I had done that before, maybe this wouldn't have happened. This is on me."

Jason pulls back to slap Bruce's shoulder. Bruce winces and Jason remembers his magic-enhanced strength. "You don't get to do that. You can't keep on taking the blame."

Bruce looks so lost, Jason wraps his arms around him again. He rubs his cheek on Bruce's hair, running his nails lightly against his alpha's scalp, the way he used to do when Bruce gets wound-up tight with guilt after sex.

"We're both fucked up, boss," he murmurs sometime after, when their tears had dried and Bruce's fingers stopped pressing bruises in his tight embrace.

"I wont lose you again. Please, Jay," Bruce murmured back.

Together, they mourn the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Some last notes because I feel guilty: I'm trusting you, my dear reader, to be able to differentiate fiction from reality. So while Bruce and Jay here are all lovey dovey and dramatic, the actions they used can be interpreted as manipulative and abusive. Just a PSA. :3c 
> 
> Hopefully, after this crying fest, these two will be ready to make up with the rest of the family? Tune in next time on... eh, just subscribe or stalk my work page xD 
> 
> Thank you for being with me for the past three months. :] I love and appreciate each and everyone of you.


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